How Young Is Too Young?

[Plugger]

How young is too young? My son is 6 and I've been thinking of showing him Muay Thai. He is dieing to learn. Also, where can I get thai shorts that would fit him? He's small for his size.

[OctaviousBP]

You can get shorts that would fit from Thailand. A Thai xs would probably do it. As far as too young, that is a judgement call on your part I would think. In Thailand, they start children quite young, with some of them competing at 8. There may be some younger, but the youngest I saw was 8. It's kind of funny, I remember watching these fights, and seeing the parallels to "hockey dads" here in Canada. By this, I mean that often times, the fathers (or uncles, pi-chai, etc.) would corner the kids... some of which would cry after losing. It would remind me so much of being in Canada, and having the parents in the crowd yelling at the children and refs.

When the fathers were wrapping the sons' hands, it was just like when my dad would lace up my skates when I was 5... giving last minute advice. It's funny how cultural phenomena often transcends the imaginary borders we put up.

Learning the skills of Muay Thai can happen at any age in my opinion, as long as there is enough maturity in the child to know the difference between the sport aspect and the martial art aspect of the game. If discipline is taught along with MT (and indeed through MT), I think it is okay. That being said, promoters won't have children under the age of 16 compete on there cards here in Eastern Canada... I don't know what it's like outside of here.

Anyways, this turned out to be a lot more anecdotal than I hoped, but maybe it will help... One thing for sure, at such a young age, I would definitely want my child to have a very good instructor. The child will be developing habits that may be hard to shake later on.

[Patrick G.]

They are never too young to learn...

One day, when i'm blessed with my first kid, I will teach him (or her) how to kick before they can walk!

[Python]

Plugger,

I have a "Lil kickers" Muay Thai class at my school for kids 5 to 7. At 8 or even at 7 (depending on their ability) they move up to the junior Thiaboxing class. I have both boys and girls competing starting at age 8 and they are doing dynamite. Dean Lessei has a couple 14 or 15 year old ladies who started at age 8 and they have both been IKF North American Champs (well, National champs, last year) for a few years now, and they usually fight adult women. So, they have gotten pretty damn tough!

So, starting out at age 6 could prove to be a great thing. I recommend you go for it, but keep it fun, so the child's interest stays peeked.

Good Luck!

[Plugger]

Thanks fellas,

We got home late last night and he asked me if I was still going to show him some kicks to the heavy bag (I have a minature bag just his size). I told him that it was too late and I would show him tommorrow. He started to cry because he was so disapointed. In those couple of seconds my 6 year old taught me alot about discipline. It will never put off teaching my son again. It's amazing what we learn from kids!